ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Uzbekistan on Wednesday took back 148 women and children linked to the Islamic State group (ISIS) who had been living in the overcrowded al-Hol camp since the jihadists were territorially defeated in March.
Their repatriation came at the official request of the Uzbek government, according to Kammal Akif, the Kurdish-led authority’s foreign affairs spokesperson.
The women had asked for their children to be removed from the extremist environment, Akif added.
The Uzbek Consul General thanked the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for safely extracting the women and children from the last ISIS holdout of Baghouz, Deir ez-Zor province.
Earlier on Wednesday, Turkey also took back 188 of its own children with suspected ties to ISIS from Iraq.
Uzbekistan and Turkey are not the only countries to repatriate nationals born to ISIS members.
France and Germany, Sweden, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Russia, have all taken back some of their women and children.
Britain and the United States have refused to take back their nationals.
The SDF captured thousands of foreign ISIS fighters and their families in the dying days of the so-called caliphate. Many now reside in Syria’s vastly overcrowded al-Hol camp.
Conditions in the camp have been described as “extreme”. Foreign women and children have been cordoned off in a separated section away from Iraqis and Syrians.
UNICEF has described the children of foreign ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria as the “world’s most vulnerable children”.
“They live in appalling conditions amid constant threats to their health, safety and well-being. They have little family support: While most are stranded with their mothers or other caregivers, many are completely alone,” UNICEF said in a recent statement.
The camp contains 29,000 children of foreign fighters, mostly under the age of 12, according to UNICEF estimates. Some 20,000 are Iraqi nationals, while the remaining 9,000 are from 60 other countries. A further 1,000 are believed to be in Iraq.
The 66 women and 88 children were handed over to Uzbek authorities in the presence of Uzbekistan’s Consul General to Dubai Alisher Salomov, a delegation of Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), and women’s rights activists in al-Jazeera canton, northern Syria, Hawar reports.
Their repatriation came at the official request of the Uzbek government, according to Kammal Akif, the Kurdish-led authority’s foreign affairs spokesperson.
The women had asked for their children to be removed from the extremist environment, Akif added.
The Uzbek Consul General thanked the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for safely extracting the women and children from the last ISIS holdout of Baghouz, Deir ez-Zor province.
Earlier on Wednesday, Turkey also took back 188 of its own children with suspected ties to ISIS from Iraq.
Uzbekistan and Turkey are not the only countries to repatriate nationals born to ISIS members.
France and Germany, Sweden, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Russia, have all taken back some of their women and children.
Britain and the United States have refused to take back their nationals.
The SDF captured thousands of foreign ISIS fighters and their families in the dying days of the so-called caliphate. Many now reside in Syria’s vastly overcrowded al-Hol camp.
Conditions in the camp have been described as “extreme”. Foreign women and children have been cordoned off in a separated section away from Iraqis and Syrians.
UNICEF has described the children of foreign ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria as the “world’s most vulnerable children”.
“They live in appalling conditions amid constant threats to their health, safety and well-being. They have little family support: While most are stranded with their mothers or other caregivers, many are completely alone,” UNICEF said in a recent statement.
The camp contains 29,000 children of foreign fighters, mostly under the age of 12, according to UNICEF estimates. Some 20,000 are Iraqi nationals, while the remaining 9,000 are from 60 other countries. A further 1,000 are believed to be in Iraq.
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